This invention relates to eave vents for housing, and particularly to an eave vent for mounting in the horizontal eave of a dwelling, for discharge of vented gas such as air from a clothes dryer, exhaust gas from a gas heater or furnace, or the like.
Vents for appliances such as clothes dryers usually are of the type that extend through the vertical side wall of the house or apartment dwelling, with a hood on the exterior and a vertical flapper inside the hood to prevent reverse air flow. There are known difficulties with this arrangement. Specifically, forced air or other gas flowing down out of the hood tends to cling to the dwelling side wall due to the Bernoulli effect, ultimately striking the ground and reversing to create a back pressure on the vent. This tends to prevent effective flow. Installation instructions typically advise to allow a certain distance between the vent hood and the ground to lessen this action, but still a reverse flow effect is noted. Also, there is normally created a negative gas pressure zone at a location down the wall some distance from the vent so that lint and other debris in the airstream or disturbed from the ground gets deposited on the wall in an unsightly manner.
An alternative to this type of vent is a roof jack where the gas is conducted up through the rooftop. That type of structure, however, involves unwanted added structural alterations, leak potential, etc.